A guest blog from Romi Mahajan, CEO ExoFusion

The demand for energy is insatiable as the population grows and consumption continues unabated. Legitimate stresses over anthropogenic global warming, diminishing resources, and energy inequality have governments, social bodies, and scientists searching for solutions and innovating relentlessly to secure a sustainable future. While some damage has already been done, the future is at stake.

Can we usher in a “Fusion Future?”

Nuclear Fusion is the grail of energy. Clean, abundant energy, harnessing the motive force of the stars, is the bogey. While fusion has been understood for eight decades, the rapid pace of change- powered by governments, labs, private fusion companies, and collaborations between all parties—has made the target visible for the first time.

There are still scientific, technical, and capital-based hurdles to Commercially Viable Fusion (CVF) at scale, but the prognosis is good, in fact great.

Keeping our eyes on the ball is necessary now, more than ever. When a critical mass of people, capital, and technology forms, good things happen, but so do bad things. Egos, inertia, competitive siloing, cliques, and rigid orthodoxies start to be “the story.” Public Relations becomes the form of communication versus, say, scientist-scientist communication and collaboration. The “Me first” attitude rears its head.

Some of these tendencies are natural. The animal spirits can animate any field, but they can also retard any field. The Fusion Future depends on us as an industry and community curbing our worst instincts and working openly towards the outcomes we all desire.

This doesn’t mean we have to do away with competition, IP, or closed-garden innovation. What it means is we must do so in a manner that builds the entire ecosystem and doesn’t create a single point of monopoly or failure. The daisy chain required to get to CVF is delicate and we must understand that and tiptoe around it so as not to hurt the enterprise as a whole. Relatedly, in a game of limited capital, it is important that money is divided across bets and not concentrated too deeply. Similarly, fusion “machine” companies must get enough funding but not to the exclusion of supply-chain or enabling-technology plays.

The Fusion Future is in sight. It is our choice whether we optimize and accelerate the path to CVF or if we let the worst tendencies of pure capitalism take over. A balance is needed and if we strike it right, we’ll be able to usher in truly a new world.

On Tuesday night this week my team received a well earned Marketing Excellence award from ITSMA – it was a Gold award for Strengthening Executive Engagement! This was for a program that Emily Curley on the team came up with called ‘Meet the Bankers’. The idea was to promote a roster of former bankers to senior executives to meet with. These “bankers” had been in their role but now work for Red Hat. Not a sales call but more of a peer to peer call about their day to day challenges. The idea worked so well it beat our expectations for almost 2 years! Congratulations to the amazing team of Emily Curley, Kelly Gutierrez, Julie Gacnik, Laney Badulis as well as 30 Red Hat Bankers.

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Strengthening Executive Engagement – Gold Wunner 2023

ITSMA Lifetime Achievement Award – Most Individual Impact – 2022

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Strengthening and Differentiating the Brand – Finalist 2022

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Enabling Sales for New Growth Opportunities – Diamond Winner 2017

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Agile Marketing – Diamond Winner 2016

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Driving Revenue with Thought Leadership – Gold Winner 2015

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Enabling Sales – Gold Winner 2010

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Predictive Data Modeling to Enable Sales – Finalist 2009

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Targeted Demand Generation – Finalist 2008

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Sharpening Competitive Brand Differentiation – Finalist 2007

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Sharpening Competitive Differentiation – Finalist 2006

ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award – Generating New Demand – Gold Winner 2005

Seattle, WA and Austin, TX- July 19, 2023—  ExoFusion, a startup focused on the shortest path to Commercially Viable Fusion (CVF) announces seed funding and ambitious plans for the “Super XT Divertor.”  Based in Seattle, WA and Austin, TX, the company will be expanding its focus on IP, licensing, and simulation in the hot area of Fusion.  ExoFusion believes that confinement is key to CVF.

ExoFusion was founded by Dr. Michael Kotschenreuther, Dr. Swadesh Mahajan, Dr. David, Hatch—all renowned physicists- and Romi Mahajan, a technology marketer and commercialization expert.  Doctors Kotschenreuther and Mahajan invented the Super X Divertor.  The company has a series of patents and a strong IP pipeline across divertor technologies, new materials, novel neutron sources, and a variety of other fundamental, fusion-related areas.

“Our company was founded on the notion that plasma confinement is key to CVF and our innovations have advanced the understanding of confinement a great deal,” said Chief Science Officer Mike Kotschenreuther.  “Our portfolio of patents, our roadmap, and our focus on simulation and licensing are the underpinnings of a powerful business model that will advance the fusion ecosystem and accelerate the path to CVF,” added CEO Romi Mahajan.

Asset Manager Russ Brown, a seed investor in ExoFusion, said “There are many promising fusion concepts out there, but cost-effective confinement remains a primary roadblock to commercial viability across the industry. ExoFusion’s patented “XF” technologies along with its Super XT Divertor will dramatically increase confinement for multiple concepts, enabling them to be smaller and more affordable—exactly what is needed to make fusion commercially viable.”

The private fusion space has garnered over $6 billion in investment over the past few years as the community seeks a way to provide a low-cost, carbon-mitigating, and relatively unlimited source of baseload power for the energy-hungry planet.  ExoFusion welcomes private partnerships and collaboration with public institutions as the path to CVF gets increasingly critical for humanity.

 “The team at ExoFusion created the Super X Divertor which we used for the MAST-Upgrade — this creative solution will be an integral part of future fusion plants,” said Dr. Steven Cowley, Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and former Head of the UKAEA.

The amount of the seed round remains undisclosed; ExoFusion will be moving towards a larger funding round over the next 12 months.

More about ExoFusion

ExoFusion accelerates the path to Commercially Viable Fusion. With the latest science and proprietary innovation in confinement, ExoFusion’s design, and simulations backed by IP, significantly reduces the cost, time, and scale to achieve CVF.

Led by world-renowned physicists, technology commercializers, marketers and
finance experts, ExoFusion is making significant breakthroughs in the goal to realize CVF.

A guest blog by Romi Mahajan

In her path breaking book “The Entrepreneurial State”, Marianna Mazzucato argues cogently, and with plenty of evidence, that the State is the key actor in technology innovation and development. We use the words “the” and “key” purposely- for four reasons:

1. The State creates and/or underwrites new technologies with a long-term view.
2. The State’s investment and ongoing incentives limit private risk.
3. There is no private investor that can compete with the State with regard to pool of available capital.
4. The State’s investments are not measured with the same ROI calculations and over the same periods.

One can go-on (and on) but these four parameters themselves make the case. Mazzucato isn’t alone in her analysis- most scholars agree- though her ideas might seem anathema to those in the technology sector who like to excessively laud private “innovation” and simultaneously lambast “government.” We can discuss this victory of Public Relations later. Here, we are interested more in understanding this idea as it pertains to the march to Commercially Viable Fusion (CVF).

Fusion has been underwritten almost exclusively the State. For seven decades, the quest for CVF has been ongoing. The carriage of Fusion has been characterized by fits and starts, but the overall vector has been positive. For many, the quest for CVF is seen as a bottomless pit of investment, but others see this as the standard manner in which science progresses- a sort of punctuated equilibrium of change. Each success and each failure begets something better.

While the State might be the key actor, there is no suggestion that private investment and innovation is unnecessary; it is in fact crucial. Private investment typically comes later in the game, when the infrastructure and basic science undergirding technology innovation has been developed. So too with CVF.

At some point in the innovation and development cycle, a sufficient critical mass of knowledge, talent, and advanced methods generates interest in the private sector and propels investment in the space. At this point, the punctuation can begin in earnest, as a variety of both competing and collaborative players strive to push the industry forward rapidly and with hope of private profit as well as public benefit. That’s where we are with CVF today. It’s indeed a heady era.

At this stage, with the efflorescence of interest and investment, firms in the CVF space must be willing to share, collaborate, and enhance each other. The stakes are high. An ecosystem must be built with intention.

Clearly, there are competing ideas, some more solid than others (forgive the pun.) Clearly, there are companies that will fail and some that will succeed. But, as with science, both successes and failures advance the industry.

It is our time.

Romi Mahajan President Pepper
Pulak Sinha CEO Pepper

Well, that’s why we build warning systems and endow people with the intelligence to act on them. And that’s why we have regulations and ask organizations to comply. It is worthwhile pausing for a moment to consider what’s at stake. When we look at the Asset Management industry as a whole, we see that it manages in excess of $120 trillion world-wide. Such sums are staggering and remind us of the famous, though apocryphal Willie Sutton story- “that’s where the money is.” The largest individual firms manage $3+ trillion. Put simply, even small failures in this industry have cross-sectoral, and fundamental effects on the economy as a whole and, ultimately, lives. We cannot afford that. Ever.

This industry cannot afford to meet the challenges of complexity, growth, regulation, compliance, and risk management with technologies that are built for other industries and ported to Asset Management after-the-fact. This industry cannot afford to meet these challenges as a technology laggard, as one so occupied with costs that it loses sight of the big picture.

Whatever the difficulties and stresses of day-to-day life in the industry, we must reject the idea that “it’s good enough.” Firms that manage hundreds of billions of dollars and dazzle investors with talk of AI, modernity, and innovation that they turn around and manage assets, dollars, and decisions on Excel are on the precipice. It is not a matter of if but when. Even the most venerable names have their “Kodak” moments when they stop paying attention to systems and cultivate a culture of dismissal.

It’s not simply a matter of efficiency, security, error management, or expedience. It’s not simply a matter of maximizing ROI by a basis point or two. What’s at stake here are “company extinction” events.

Modern business and technology have converged into a singularity. The stakes to get it right are high. Therefore it is high-time the Asset Management industry faces reality squarely.

Let’s be smart. Don’t settle for “good enough” because one day it will fail. Invest in the right systems and don’t run your business on Excel. Think of reporting requirements not as onerous but as good gut-checks. Together, united, we can build a culture of success.

Romi Mahajan, CEO ExoFusion
Dr. Swadesh Mahajan, Senior Scientific Advisor, ExoFusion

The pursuit of nuclear energy through controlled thermonuclear fusion could easily qualify as one of the grandest scientific and technical ventures in history.  As with all such gargantuan endeavors, the challenge is Herculean and has been subject to ebbs and flows in confidence.

The era of this persistent oscillation between hope and despair may just have ended, however; cautious optimism prevails after a succession of events including major new advances in the science and technology of fusion and a fundamental societal restructuring of research and development.  We’ve matriculated from talking just about fusion “research” to real and fertile discussions on commercially-viable fusion (CVF.)

Why are we optimistic?

First of all, hats off to the enormous sponsorship of fusion by governments around the world.  Here, fundamentally understanding both the science and technology was paramount, with commercialization being secondary.  That is the nature of discovery.  The recent success at NIF in achieving “break-even” is more than symbolic.  It is the beginning of a new era built on a foundation of science sponsored by Government. The bend in the road has come.

Second, the recent animation of the private sector in Fusion, with over $5 billion being raised is exciting and important.  The public-private partnerships that have ensued add buoyancy to the goal of CVF.

Third, new technologies, like the high temperature superconductors used by CFS and new physics ideas pioneered by the physics community will be crucial in fulfilling this promise.

Fourth, the possibility of large-scale simulations of new physics regimes with advanced software is a boon to the cause.

These are exciting times for fusion- for the first time we have a coalescence of all vital elements to make fusion power a reality.  The time for bullishness has come!

URL:  exofusion.co

Second in our “AssetTech” Series

By Romi Mahajan President Pepper
and Pulak Sinha, CEO Pepper

The Financial Services sector is every-changing and frenetic. As conditions change, markets change, as consumer behavior changes, markets change, and as new paths for ROI are created, markets change. That’s the name of the game in FinServ.

Couple this rapidity of change with the sheer size of the market and the results are epochal. One sliver of the market- the world of professional Asset Management- breaks the tape at $120 trillion AUM world-wide, a staggering number that exceeds global GDP. With a $120 trillion river running its course, even tributaries can be huge and powerful.

Enter the world of “private credit,” a fast-growing marketplace that now exceeds $1.5 trillion in investment with annualized deal-size in excess of $35 billion. As companies and other entities seek new sources of funding and as investors seek new forms of ROI generation and liquidity, the private credit market has burgeoned. New funds are minted daily.

For all investment types and asset classes, data is central to the story, but even more so with regard to non-public assets. Here, data and its connection to proprietary methodologies, valuation methods, and calculation is paramount. Further, ensuring that all parts of the organization are using the same data and the same methods to evaluate, value, invest, track, and report on deals is key to success. The lack of the proper platforms and controls is a sure-fire way to create internal friction and to slip-up in the marketplace. In private credit, data is the watchword.

As we mentioned before, private credit is a huge asset class, but very few companies build technology platforms and solutions specifically for this –and adjacent- industries. This is a huge miss in the technology industry as a whole. The private credit industry deserves better.

The data opportunity in this space is enormous. Even industry-watchers would have been challenged to notice the space even two years ago. Now it has emerged as a colossus. That’s why “AssetTech” – technology platforms that are innately and natively responsive to the needs of Asset Management- matters; the size and importance of the marketplace is unmatched.

The private credit data opportunity is real. We are eager to discuss it with you.

Part One in a Three-Part Series on “AssetTech”

by Romi Mahajan- President, Pepper

Business coins portmanteau words liberally.  As an example, combine “Finance” and “Technology” and you get “FinTech.”  Similarly if you combine “Assets” with “Technology,” you get “AssetTech.”  While the first is part of the everyday vocabulary in the industry, the latter is hardly understood.

This is curious, given the sheer size and importance of the industry.

World-wide, formal Asset Managers have over $120 trillion in” Assets under Management (AUM).”  This number is staggering- it exceeds World GDP.  The larger firms in the space themselves manage amounts measured in the trillions.  It is not uncommon for the tallies of “deals” –even just in the US economy-exceeding $250 billion in a month.  Again, these numbers suggest the importance of the industry as a whole.

Importance implies both opportunity and complexity.  With the rise in numbers and valences of asset classes and the intermingling of private and public assets- and that too across geographies- the opportunities to generate ROI where it was “invisible” before have increased substantially.  With this increase, the attendant increase in compliance, data, security, and governance needs come part-n-parcel.  In addition, investors are calling for transparency, where opacity ruled the day before.

Practitioners understand that the best tool-set to manage the forests of data and to derive insights and actions is Artificial Intelligence.  AI cuts across data, knowledge, decision-making, and pattern recognition.  AI is by its very nature dynamic, just like the markets being harnessed and understood.

Investors and Asset Managers have yet another convergence of interests with regard to AI. Both are looking for a step-up in a competitive game and both are looking for potential ROI being converted into kinetic.

For this reason, AI has to be native in AssetTech.  An AI-powered chassis is necessary for meaningful AssetTech platforms.

Here, distinguishing between rhetorical AI and real AI is key.  Kicking the tires is essential.  Furthermore, AI has to be at play at any entry point into the platform, from whatever workload you begin with.

Because of this, Marketing Darwinism and Pepper are together opening an industry dialogue and issuing an industry challenge.

Doesn’t Asset Management deserve its own technology and doesn’t that technology have to be the best we can offer?  Isn’t it time we go get it?

Romi Mahajan, President Pepper
Ann Eberle Thomas, CRO Pepper
Dharmesh Godha, President Advaiya

In a recent discussion with an executive, CRM software came up as a hot topic. Her assertion was that too many customers see CRM as a “commodity” and thus balk at upgrades, new purchases, and list-prices. The comment was interesting for a variety of reasons of which the most important was the degree to which this flies in the face of the claims (obviously) that CRM providers make. After all, they argue, if your customers are your lifeblood (as you claim) then how can the system that enhances your ability to build long, loyal relationships be relegated to commodity status? Isn’t a CRM system your best front-end to the customer and as such a core tool to boost sales? If so, how can you think of it as being “just there?”

Commodity? Not a commodity? The grass is green on both sides of the fence, but that is because our imagination has failed when it comes to both CRM and software in general. We continue to make software fit our calcified methods and processes versus letting it liberate us from these very constraints.

Let’s focus on CRM as an illustrative case. From the beginning, organizations have had relationships with their customers- this is simply a truism. Before machines, before computers, before software, before it all, organizations connected with customers and prospects and conducted business. But when some decades ago, intrepid entrepreneurs like Tom Siebel and Marc Benioff realized that specialized software solutions could be used to enhance an already existing idea, the category “CRM” was born. Once the genie leaves the bottle, it cannot be put back in. Once a category is in the world and the lexicon is understood by all, it takes on a life of its own. As such, today CRM is a decabillion dollar business and there are over a thousand companies that build CRM solutions and platforms.

When faced with so many choices and so many seemingly mundane applications of the category, it is no wonder that many think of it as a commodity. This is an understandable if unfortunate fact. When we take an existing idea and an existing process and simply make it “a bit better” with software, the software itself is measured in increments of value. The game in this case is linear.

What if, however, the CRM system allows you to quickly revisit the taxonomies and hierarchies you’ve held as sacrosanct before? What if the CRM system allows you to do different and dynamic things at scale whereas the previous dispensation made those ambitions impossible? In these cases, CRM is not a commodity but is, to use an overused term, a game-changer. Here, the game is non-linear.

That indeed is the nature of innovation. Incremental change and enhancements are good but when an entire epistemology or process is changed, innovation occurs. Innovation is very much a product of the outcome. As such, customers are thus the judge of whether a software solution is innovative or not.

Coming back to CRM. Yes, organizations have from time immemorial “related” to their customers, but the ability to do it not only at scale but by bringing to bear a variety of otherwise disparate data points, is powerful and indeed innovative. The watchword here is “integration” and how it relates to customer engagement. Customers are not monoliths, given to a unidimensional description. They are active, dynamic, multi-faceted beings. When CRM can help you not only discover deep context but also capitalize on it to offer value to these customers, then it ceases to be a commodity.

It requires us to use our imagination.

Marketing Darwinism: Advaiya has gone through a few stages of evolution, from its beginning. Your GTM is now very clear. Can you describe the changes and how you got to where you are?

Manish Godha: Advaiya started as an eager, nimble group of techies and consultants who have been enthused by technology’s potential to rationalize and transform businesses. We sought and found opportunities for impact and that led us through this journey of evolution. Our initial focus was on helping tech companies communicate the value of their technologies for businesses. This indeed meant that we could bring our skills of business and technology consulting along with marketing in interesting ways; while gaining enormous expertise and experience in the cutting edge technologies in enterprise contexts. The work we did, especially for Microsoft, used approaches grounded in the enterprise architecture concepts within the contexts of newer digital possibilities of transformation. We slowly shifted to the larger marketing and digital marketing needs of businesses, in general. Technology enablement remained our forte, and we were indeed more successful where we could address marketing concerns with data, automation, and web apps. As we worked for tech companies, conglomerates, consumer businesses, e-commerce companies, and service companies, we matured our engagement and delivery processes to better understand business, support business critical workloads and build deeper technical skills on newer enterprise technologies. With these strengths, we refocused on business productivity solutions as relevant to services businesses and service functions within large businesses. We realized that in services businesses customer experience and engagement are intrinsically and directly connected with service delivery and productivity solutions when seen in the context of customer engagement are highly relevant, but most businesses have approached them in a bespoke manner which did not unlock their true value. This is the opportunity that we are geared up today to address, as our unique capability in this regard flows from the many years of work in the fields of enterprise technology, business context mapping, marketing digital and business apps.

Marketing Darwinism: The Technology and Business services you offer a variety of customers are focused on enterprise productivity and adaptation. Does this fall into the category of future-proofing and ensuring that the digital infrastructure exists to grow even in a recession?

Manish Godha: Our services build the digital infrastructure for customer engagement and productivity. These aspects go hand-in-hand and, most obviously in case of services businesses, are core to the business model. Our solutions typically lead to a more resilient customer connection and services delivery. These can be critical for survival and growth of a business. Whether it is about managing leads, building client relationships, organizing field or project service delivery, or analyzing billings and costs, a digital infrastructure can bring the required robustness with efficiencies as well as agility during downturns to be able to offer more relevant client experience, which then becomes foundation for growth. Our services go beyond building and implementing a technology stack, we work with our clients to ensure that the solutions are used well and their employees feel supported and confident. This does unlock the business’s potential to innovate, as the digital, operational and analytical backbone provides the requisite confidence. Our clients have, for example during the pandemic, revamped how they packaged their offerings in no time as they could digitally roll out newer schedules, billing methods and so on.

Marketing Darwinism: How does a great Technology Infrastructure lend itself to a great customer or consumer experience? In other words, when a company has “Advaiya Inside” how does it work with its customers better?

Manish Godha: We realize that customer experience is primarily a consequence of how a business connects and relates with the customer and how it delivers its service—digitally or otherwise. Our solutions address these very aspects directly. The sustained high-quality customer interaction creates a latent capital that yields enormous dividends for the business’s growth. Businesses with integrated and cohesive customer interaction systems move customers more quickly through the sales funnel while providing a favorable brand experience. For example, we help create a fluid and straightforward physical and digital transaction experience which is personalized, comprehensive and responsive. With our solutions for work management and productivity, businesses can also ensure faster delivery, a better after sales service and serve their returning customers better. We help create an insights driven operation which not only provides better experience, but also is more efficient, as better logistics, work management, value chain management—all feed from it.

Marketing Darwinism: Advaiya has had incredible success building both the US market and the Indian domestic market. Few companies can boast of that. Can you share a bit of your secret sauce there? What markets are next for you as you expand your global footprint?

Manish Godha: We depend on our ability to understand our client businesses better and provide exceptional support. We have consciously built these for the US and India markets. We have invested in “local abilities” not necessarily in the sense of physical proximity, but in regards to having deeper and exhaustive understanding of our clients’ business context and environment, and in regards to providing support as relevant to the criticality of the solutions we implement. We have been successful in creating this “nearness” and availability, which have been found invaluable by our clients. This bolsters our technology capabilities and capacity, to maintain those we have stayed similarly near and available to our talent. It has required us to be somewhat focused in terms of geography of our client base, and we see enormous growth potential in the US and India. We plan to further strengthen our service and support capabilities in these markets and expand within.

Marketing Darwinism: You have partnered with companies like Microsoft and have kept abreast of their offerings and changes. What investment areas are you most excited about and what areas will you be doubling-down on in 2023?

Manish Godha: Our partnership with Microsoft has been quite successful with us driving revenues and customer relationships collaboratively in multiple segments. We have built multiple advanced capabilities along with “Gold” level solution partner competencies. This has of course allowed us to be on the leading edge, as regards Microsoft’s business technology offerings. Our solution offerings have evolved accordingly. We believe that Microsoft’s investments in the areas of business applications would be enormously valuable for organizations globally. Specifically, in the areas relating to customer engagement, we believe the Microsoft technologies are amongst the best, and are best suited for organizations across. Whether building a customer data platform or intelligently driving customer interactions, the Dynamics 365 applications and the Power Platform, can help organizations transform themselves digitally rapidly and reliably. These are the areas where we are investing as well, in terms of capacity as well as building integrations and offerings relevant to businesses in our target markets.

Marketing Darwinism: Culture. It plays a huge role in all companies but especially in Tech-focused companies. You have won a series of culture awards- what is your differentiator here?

Manish Godha: Our culture has been a huge advantage for us. We understand that at our scale we get the benefit of being small enough to bring multiple abilities quickly to an engagement and be agile, and at the same time being large enough to have systems and processes to provide continuity, coherence and reliability. These are a direct function of our culture built on our values of being customer centric, having passion for technology, always learning, excellence in work, and most importantly, respect for individuals. We take our values very seriously and that has helped build our culture where our team members are comfortable seeking and providing help to each other, engaging in each other’s pursuits, building deep capabilities, being sensitive to clients’ purposes. We are deeply conscious of the fact that in professional services businesses like ours, it can be difficult for our team members to balance client goals, company goals and personal aspirations. Hence, we try hard to build and maintain alignment with our team members’ individual goals as we organize our teams and projects.